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Over the next 48 hours take time to vote on the person(s) you want. You can either vote yes or no. (+1 or -1) At the end of 48 hours, the person with the most votes wins and we ALL endorse them for the host of our group.

Near as I can tell these are the names that have been thrown around and the people who have volunteered, so consider this our ballot. Copy and paste the ballot between the dashed lines into a new post and cast your votes. You may vote for or against as many people as you want (including write ins, as long as they haven't said they don't want to host):

(POLLS CLOSE AT 1:16pm EST WEDNESDAY! VOTES COMING IN AFTER EXACTLY THEN WILL NOT COUNT!)

EDIT TO ADD: Please let's not turn this into a circus. That's my plea to you. All the other groups are doing fine picking hosts... We're the only ones going crazy. Let's just be civil here in this thread. Let's get this done with and move on!

EDIT TO ADD: If there is a tie there will be a run off immediately after the votes are counted (say by 1:30pm EST on Wednesday). I will post a new thread and voting may take place for 24 hours for those people. Repeat if necessary.

EDIT TO ADD: Skinner has pinned this thread to the top of the group for us and has been kept up to date with the voting proceedings. Thanks Skinner!

EDIT TO ADD: You MAY edit your votes at any point up until 1:16pm EST Wednesday. Any votes changed after that point WILL NOT COUNT AND THE LAST QUALIFYING VOTE WILL.

"The National Energy Assistance Directors' Association was set to announce February 9 that 8.9 million households are expected to qualify for financial help this winter, up from 8.3 million last winter."

So onto analysis.... Home heating oil has risen the most over the past six-eight years. It was not triple as I said during the winter... although it is slightly higher than the 150% that it is in the winter during the summer months, of course you use less. Doubling the funding for heating assistance is a good thing and that shouldn't be belittled. However, with the costs of other things also going up, people are increasingly dependent on home heating oil assistance plans.

Funding per person in 2007 was $500.94 per person (dividing the money available by the number accepted to the program that year from above). However, there is overhead on the 2.4+ Billion funded in 2007 as well as assistance given for cooling and other issues... LIHEAP claims to have given an average of $265 per person for heating in 2007 or 53% of the funding available. (http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ocs/liheap/publications/liheap07rc.pdf, p.51)

If the same funding model holds true today (and it should), that means that using the same math but on this year's numbers... There is available $573.03 available per person before overhead (et. al.). After overhead and non-heat funding on the current model (47%) you are left with $303.71 per person this year.

NOW.... This is a 14.7% increase in funding over 2007!!

HOWEVER...

1. People using natural gas on LIHEAP (60%) have seen a 19.8% decrease in prices for a net gain of 24.5% in gov't aid.
2. People using electric heat on LIHEAP (19.0%) have seen a 9.245% increase in prices for a net gain of 9.76% in gov't aid.
3. People using propane heat on LIHEAP (5.2%) have seen a 39.66% increase in prices for a net LOSS of 24.96% in gov't aid.
4. People using oil heat on LIHEAP (12%) have seen a 44.83% increase in prices for a net LOSS of 30.13% in gov't aid.

So, data shows that the current rates of coverage for LIHEAP families has gotten better for those using natural gas and heat (79% of LIHEAP homes). But, it is still lagging for the 17.2% of families that use either propane or oil heat.

Cuts in government aid will shrink the amount of money that each family gets. Some families are doing worse than they were in 2007, some are doing better. Either way, these cuts are going to hurt. Taking into account that food, health care, and so on also costs more than it did in 2007 and that wages are stagnant or have fallen (depending on industry) since then, that unemployment is still very high and a large number of people are out of unemployment insurance, ANY cut in funding for this vital program is detrimental to our LIHEAP Americans. Those who will be hurt most are those that use propane and heating oil. But everyone will still be hurt.